Donald Trump, North Korea, Volvo: Your Thursday Briefing Top News

The U.S. is hinting at a possible return to war with North Korea after Pyongyang tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, and it is proposing wider U.N. sanctions against “any country that does business with this outlaw regime.”

The Times Magazine looks at how Donald Trump’s life and career have been defined by legal battles, and at whether the attorneys who guided him through the courtrooms of New York and New Jersey know how to navigate Washington.

Bianca Sierra, left, and Stephany Mayor near their home in Akureyri, Iceland, this month.Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times

• Antiquities, returned.

The art supplies seller Hobby Lobby has agreed to give up 5,500 artifacts, including ancient clay cuneiform tablets, that were smuggled out of Iraq and labeled tile samples. The company will pay $3 million to settle the case.

• Quotation of the day.

“Self-restraint, which is a choice, is all that separates armistice and war.”

Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, commander of U.S. troops in South Korea, in an unusually blunt warning to North Korea after it tested an intercontinental ballistic missile that analysts said could reach Alaska.

Back Story

No matter where you are, it seems everyone complains about inaccurate weather forecasts.

In 1954, The Times reported that meteorologists were asking the public for a “better understanding of their complex work.”

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A satellite image of the Pacific used by a weather research team studying El Niño.Credit Kent Nishimura for The New York Times

“The Weatherman is tired of being the butt of a parade of stale jokes,” the article read.

But thanks to satellites and ever more advanced data analysis, short-term predictions of three to five days have become remarkably accurate, notes Henry Fountain, a Times reporter who focuses on climate change and the environment.

He cautions, however, that longer-term forecasting, of several weeks to several months, remains more problematic.

These subseasonal to seasonal forecasts, as they are called, are critical for economies worldwide, helping farmers in Australia decide how much irrigation water they’ll need, for example, or international shippers plan their routes. They also affect military and disaster planning.

European forecasts are often considered better than most, in part because European governments often devote more resources to them.

But the U.S. is trying to catch up. The government this spring enacted a law that prioritizes research to improve longer-term modeling.

Jennifer Jett contributed reporting.

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